Roasted Sweet Potato with Rosemary & Orange

Roasting sweet potatoes really brings out their natural sweetness and almost caramelizes them and the addition of orange juice, mandarin slices and fresh rosemary works with the flavor of the sweet potatoes to create a subtle but very tasty dish. It’s great served warm or cold the next day. It’s really filling too, I’ll often have just this and a big salad.

In New Zealand, sweet potatoes are commonly called kumara, and they were brought here by the first settlers, the Maori for whom they were an important staple crop. They come in a variety of different colors, which all have slightly different flavors, but any kind can be used for this recipe.

This is a sweet potato (a.k.a. kumara)

First of all, because there seems to be some confusion between sweet potatoes, kumaras and yams I want to show you what I’m using. These are called kumara in New Zealand, which is the Maori word for sweet potato. And they are, in fact, sweet potatoes, but I’ve never heard them referred to as sweet potatoes here. So, to hopefully avoid any confusion, here’s what a sweet potato (kumara) looks like (there is some variation in color between different varieties, at least in New Zealand.

This is a really easy recipe to adjust for different volumes, depending on how much you want to make. It keeps really well in the fridge, and it’s delicious cold as well, so you might want to make more than you need for one meal. As a rule of thumb, you want to start with about twice as much as you need, because it will cook down to about half the amount.

Ingredients:

4 large sweet potatoes
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
1-2 tablespoons organic tamari
1-2 tablespoons honey or agave syrup
2 cloves garlic, pressed or finely minced
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Himalayan sea salt
2 mandarins, peeled and separated into slices
1 orange or tangelo, juiced
handful of walnut pieces

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 200 C. Add the olive oil to a shallow baking dish and make sure it’s evenly spread around to prevent the sweet potato from sticking.

Cut off the pointy ends of the sweet potatoes and peel. Chop into cubes and put into the baking dish. The bigger the pieces the longer it will take to cook, so I normally cut them into pieces 1cm (3/4 inch) square. I usually put the baking dish into the oven at this point, even if it’s not up to temperature, while I chop and prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Strip the rosemary leaves from the stem and chop them as finely as you can. You want about 2 tablespoons of very finely chopped fresh rosemary. Sprinkle on top of the sweet potato.

Everything chopped and ready to go into the oven

Peel 2 cloves of garlic and press through a garlic press or mince and add to the sweet potato mix, along with the cinnamon, sea salt, honey are agave syrup and tamari. Toss everything together so the oil and spices evenly coat all the pieces of sweet potato. If you’re using honey and it’s quite thick it’s easier if you add it after the sweet potato has been in the oven for 15-20 minutes and started to heat up. The heat will liquify the honey and make it easier to mix in.

Bake for about 45 minutes, until sweet potato is soft, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking and make sure everything gets cooked evenly. The cooking time may vary depending on how deep your mixture is and how large the pieces of sweet potato are.

When the sweet potato is soft,  add the orange or tangelo juice (use tangelo juice if you can, the flavor is really beautiful) and mix thoroughly. Put the dish back in and turn the grill on high to brown and caramelize the top. Cook another 10-15 minutes, being careful to watch and stir frequently enough that it doesn’t burn.

Remove from oven, toss in mandarin slices and walnut pieces and toss everything a bit to make sure they are evenly distributed. Serve and enjoy!

Roasted Sweet Potato with Rosemary & Orange ready to eat as part of your main meal or as a cold sweet potato salad

If you like that sweet, sticky, caramelized flavor just put it under the grill to brown it after it’s finished roasting. This has such a beautiful, naturally sweet flavor it’s almost like a dessert.

If you like it more caramelized just put it under the grill after it's finished roasting

Rosemary, garlic, walnut kefir cheese on a flax cracker

This is a beautiful, tangy, silky-soft cheese perfect for spreads and dips. With just a few simple ingredients, it’s very quick to make up if you have already strained the kefir through cheesecloth to make the cheese. Since it’s made from milk kefir, it has all the healthy probiotic benefits of kefir, but the cream cheese-like consistency makes it so much more versatile. It would be a great dish to bring to potlucks and picnics. It’s a delicious and refreshing addition to sandwiches, on crackers or as a dip for vegetable sticks.

Ingredients

4 cups milk kefir (approx 1 cup kefir cheese)
handful of fresh rosemary (about 1 tablespoon very finely chopped)
1 small clove garlic
5-6 whole walnuts
pinch Himalayan sea salt

Instructions

You’ll need to have some kefir already made. Here’s the recipe for making kefir.

Straining the whey to make kefir cheese

Make the kefir cheese in advance by lining a plastic strainer or colander with cheesecloth. Sit the strainer or colander into a bowl or jar so that there will be enough room for the whey to drain off into the bowl/jar without touching the bottom of the strainer/colander. Pour the kefir into the cheesecloth and let it sit in the refrigerator for 24-48 hours to drain. You may have to experiment with the cheesecloth to see what works best, a single or double thickness. You may want to use a double thickness of cheesecloth if the kefir is a very thin and runny consistency. If the kefir is quite thick, with clots already forming you may be able to use a single thickness of cheesecloth.

The kefir should make around 1 cup of kefir cheese by the time the whey has drained off and it’s reduced down. If you end up with more or less just adjust the amounts of the other ingredients to suit.

Once the kefir cheese is ready, scrape it from the cheesecloth into a glass or ceramic bowl. Remove any hard stems from the rosemary and chop it as finely as you can. Try to get it as close to a powdered texture as possible. Add to the kefir cheese. Remove the husk from the clove of garlic and crush it through a garlic press or chop it as finely as possible. Add to the kefir cheese. Roughly chop the walnuts and add to the kefir cheese, along with Himalayan sea salt to taste.

Kefir cheese on apple-cinnamon flax crackers and seaweed rice crackers

Mix by hand until all the ingredients are well blended, and serve.

I spread some of this kefir cheese on some apple-cinnamon flax crackers I had, and on seaweed rice crackers garnished with new alfalfa/kale sprouts. The flax crackers were soft and sweet, the rice crackers salty and crunchy, the kefir cheese was beautiful with both of them.

Sunflower Walnut Pate (TuNo) on a bed of sprouts

I love this pate, it’s so tasty, nutritious and versatile. It can be used in sandwiches and wraps, as a spread or dip or simply drop a scoop on top of a green salad. It’s also called TuNo because it tastes and looks very similar to tuna salad, but it’s vegan, in fact it’s a super-healthy raw vegan dish. Now if you’re one of those vegetarians or vegans who hates the taste and smell of tuna, you’ll still love this no fishy taste or smell. I suspect what most people really love about tuna salad is more to do with the added ingredients than with the tuna itself. But the tuna provides a vehicle and texture that holds it all together and gives you that high-protein full feeling. Well, the walnuts and sunflower seeds do the same in this case, and the taste really comes from the spices and other added ingredients.

Great dish to serve to your non-vegan friends – see how many of them can guess that it’s not actually tuna.

Ingredients:

1 cup sunflower seeds, soaked
1 cup walnuts, broken into pieces, soaked
1/2 cup celery, finely chopped
1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped
1/4 cup sauerkraut, finely chopped and juice to taste (can substitute pickles instead)
2 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 cloves garlic
1/2 teas kelp or wakame flakes
2 tbsp tamari
1 teas apple cider vinegar (ACV) or kombucha vinegar
2 teas ground cumin
1 teas paprika

Instructions:

Soak the sunflower seeds and walnuts for 4-8 hours. Drain and throw away the soak water. The soaking neutralizes the natural enzyme inhibitors in nuts and seeds making them more nutritious and easily digestible.

Add the sunflower seeds, walnuts, lemon juice, garlic, kelp, tamari, cumin, paprika and apple cider vinegar to the blender. Blend until smooth. If you have trouble blending it, add some of the sauerkraut or pickle juice. You don’t want it too runny, aim for the consistency of tuna salad.

Transfer to a bowl and mix in the chopped celery, parsley and sauerkraut (or pickle) by hand.

This will keep for several days in the fridge stored in an airtight container.

Sunflower Walnut Pate on flax crackers with sprouts and arugula

Serving suggestions:

• Eat by the spoonful
• Add a scoop to top off a salad
• Use as a dip with crudites
• Eat with flax crackers and sprouts
• Use in place of the rice, and add other raw vegetables for raw sushi
• Serve a as a spread on bread, in a pita pocket, or wrap with lots of salad vegetables

Let me know how you like it, and what other creative ways you invent to serve it.

Raw Granola & Almond Milk

Raw food is so quick and easy to make, it’s the perfect thing for people who “don’t have the time to cook”. Well, here’s the perfect solution – don’t cook! Jennifer Cornbleet demonstrates how to make both Almond Milk and Raw Granola in under 8 minutes, real time. Okay, so she had to soak the nuts overnight, but that’s just being organized and takes maybe 2 minutes. And of course you have to wash up afterwards, but it’s not like you have to scrub a baking tray with cooked on granola! Have a look at this video and see how easy it is.

Here’s my recipe for how to make almond milk.

Here are the instructions for the raw granola using soaked nuts and seeds and dried fruit. Use equal amounts of each ingredient.
Ingredients:

Almonds
Sunflower seeds
Walnuts
Raisins (or dried figs or dates)
Pinch of salt
Dash of cinnamon

Soak nuts and seeds in one container the night before you want to have your granola. Rinse and drain the next morning. Any type of raw nuts or seed you like can be used.

Add all ingredients to food processor. Process until it resembles a granola-like consistency.

You can eat this right away or store it in your refrigerator for up to 3 days. Top with fresh fruit such as blueberries, sliced banana, or pineapple.

Serve with almond milk.

Raw food author and chef Jennifer Cornbleet shows you how to make a quick and delicious gluten-free raw granola, which is then topped with raw almond milk. From her DVD, Raw Food Made Easy . Produced by Larry Cook. Distributed by Tubemogul.